Past Issues

Access and Success

This year, Purdue launched Access & Success, a seven-year campaign aimed at securing $304M to build an endowment to assist and reward students during their time at Purdue.

In the School of Chemical Engineering, new scholarships and programs are being established for students of all backgrounds and abilities. Undergraduate scholarships are planned based on need (for underrepresented sophomores and students in the program who come from urban high schools), middle-income need (targeting families that don’t qualify for federal or state assistance based on their household income), and out-of-state need (for high-ability students from states other than Indiana).

The school will also accelerate the deployment of an Undergraduate Mentoring/Retention Program to retain and graduate more students, various Study Abroad learning experiences, and a Summer Bridge Program to assist underrepresented and at-risk students. Teaching innovations like the Fundamentals Laboratory will continue to provide juniors with opportunities to engage in hands-on activities that demonstrate fundamental principles associated with each of the core chemical engineering courses.

At the graduate level, the school will increase fellowships to recruit top students and fund the Graduate Student Seminar Program, where some 25 diverse guests deliver technical lectures on cutting-edge research topics to the graduate students each year.

Scholarship Invests in the Future of Engineering
The James H. Rust Scholarship in Chemical Engineering was established in January 1998 and endowed in 2006 by chemical engineering alumnus, James H. Rust (BS ’58, PhD NE ’65, OChE 2006).

As an educator, Jim Rust always planned to fund future engineering scholarships. “Engineering is one of the most important higher education fields for the U.S.,” Rust says. “I feel it is a patriotic duty of American engineers to make a small sacrifice by increased savings to fund scholarships for future engineers,” he explains.

“In 1989 I started endowing a scholarship for members of Triangle Fraternity, a social fraternity of engineers and architects,” Rust explains. By 1997, Rust had established a Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT) with the Purdue Research Foundation, designating that the eventual remainder would go to the School of Chemical Engineering. Since the CRUT will not provide funds for chemical engineering students until the future, Rust has also been making an annual $5,000 gift to fund his scholarship.

The endowment was established in 2006 and today its value exceeds $110,000. “Endowing the scholarship is important to insure its survivability,” says Rust. “Doing so has made me feel good, but it is a small part of my plans for financial assistance for chemical engineering.”

Alum Honors Parents through Scholarship
The Kenneth J. and Shirley E. Henry Scholarship in Chemical Engineering was established in 2007 by chemical engineering alumnus, David Henry (BS ’89).

“Following completion of my own donation to the School of Chemical Engineering as part of The Campaign for Purdue, I wanted to explore other giving opportunities,” says Henry, who started a scholarship in his parents’ honor. “The final concept came to me while sitting in the stands during the 4th quarter of the Central Michigan game last September,” Henry recalls. “Suddenly the idea of the scholarship, in my parents’ honor, popped into my mind.” His parents had sacrificed quite a bit to send him to Purdue as an out-of-state student a quarter of a century ago.

With a $25,000 minimum endowment funding level required, Henry chose to fund it over five years. This requires a $5,000 annual gift, part of which will be made by taking advantage of his employer’s (ExxonMobil Foundation) matching gift program.

“My endowment agreement was drafted and signed in early December 2007, so my plan became to present it to my parents at Christmas,” says Henry. “They were both very surprised and proud to know that this gift in their name would benefit deserving students for a long time to come.”